Retrospect Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I've always wondered what people's abandoned projects looked like. Things they were on with, but for any reason, stopped coding it and forgot about it. Here's one such project of mine, it's not a port of "Spiky Harold" at all, rather more, it was going to be a Spiky Harold spin-off for the TI99 with 32K & Disk. I might one day gather the enthusiasm to carry on the project, but it would be a huge effort for me. Here's a video of it in action, just one screen, and Spiky only has two frames of animation when he walks. Spiky takes up 4 sprites on the TI99. Whenever he walks, the character patterns are redefined on the fly rather than being set to char pat numbers. All patterns are stored in an array. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 My "abandoned" projects are actually dormant and I will eventually get back to them. Ultimate Planet: Phoenix Chess: No images yet since the engine is not done yet. Pcode project. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrospect Posted January 3, 2019 Author Share Posted January 3, 2019 My "abandoned" projects are actually dormant and I will eventually get back to them. Ultimate Planet: UP1.GIF Phoenix Chess: No images yet since the engine is not done yet. Pcode project. I always find that I never commented the code properly with some projects so they end up in the bin because I forget how I was doing stuff at the time. Ultimate Planet looks interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I actually go to a lot of pains to document my code. However, with complex programs, even that is not enough and if I leave the project for more than a few weeks then it takes me a long time to re-familiarize myself with the program logic. This is especially true for assembly language projects like Ultimate Planet which already runs close to 2000 lines of code if not more. This particular one still needs an AI, which I anticipate will be particularly thorny given that the player has 3 other AI controlled opponents with a rich strategic field... Probably why I have been procrastinating for the past 8 years or so... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I have two "on hold" projects myself. One is the Gauntlet clone, the other is a Roguelike. I intend to pick them back up once I have the CRPG done. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 (edited) I have so many abandoned projects from up til 1991, that have never been shown outside one or two UG meetings. The complete catalog of Gadego Software: Blue Bert - a Q-bert type game with animated cut scenes. Basic, then XB, then XB again, then all Assembly. Neandro - a Bag Man type game with cavemen and dinos designed by Matt Storm, all assembly.Cytron Masters clone (Apple II game) bitmap tiles, real time strategy game. Bubble Plane - actually this one shipped as an A/L game loaded from XB, and as an all A/L 32k cartridge image for Geneve GPL env only. Reviewed in MicroPendium. AdventureQuest - CRPG in many versions from Basic to XB with A/L support, then all assembly, then Geneve. Roughly Ultima 2 type technology. Hobbit - replacement for TI-Net BBS, in all assembly with the initial design in C and coded in A/L one subroutine at a time. Never got further than User Login / create a lot of databases. TE-Free - dumb terminal program demonstrating the Hobbit A/L support library. Green Watermelon Fractal Hacker - 4A then Geneve Mandelbrot explorer, also animates the set of Cantor sets between any two points. Finished, never published. Vantage - drawing package for 4A bitmap, according to perspective drafting principles, intended to draw wireframe scenes for 3D dungeons, but from any POV. What I did in Algebra II instead of listening to the lecture. Completed on a Mac some years later. Countless XB games I abandoned.. I still have all the graphics on paper with colored pencil. The first three games suffered eventually from the same terrible bug, which I suspect now was the heat death of the TMS9901 in my CC9900. I have a user ISR hook, but interrupts seem to fire more often than 1/60 sec, and interrupts monopolize all the CPU time and everything goes super slow. But then I saw the same behavior on TI sidecars. It was beyond my ability to debug. I dug up AdventureQuest for Chi Friday, but it will remain under wraps until after Adamantyr ships his game, which is far superior. (The one really cool feature I had was a 2x2 tile, 32x32 pixel dragon that existed on the main world map or a dungeon, where you and everything else are one 16x16 tile). For now my only project is FORTI-2, which consumed at least 200 hours in 2018. There.. my brain dump of unfinished software goals from my adolescence... now back to the working world Edited January 3, 2019 by FarmerPotato 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteE Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 This was my backup plan for last years 4k competition in case Bounce'n'Pounce didn't work out. Tron Deadly Discs on Intellivision was another favorite from my childhood, along with Bump'n'Jump. Speaking of Bounce'n'Pounce, I've not given up yet. But I have hit a snag with the track generation and the scrolled tiles - for the 4k I created the transition tables by hand, but for the full version I need a generated solution and can't quite come up with the right algorithm. tron.mag 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I dug up AdventureQuest for Chi Friday, but it will remain under wraps until after Adamantyr ships his game, which is far superior. (The one really cool feature I had was a 2x2 tile, 32x32 pixel dragon that existed on the main world map or a dungeon, where you and everything else are one 16x16 tile). Hey, don't let me intimidate you into not releasing! I'm probably several months off... A 32x32 size dragon? You mean, like this? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 My catalog of vaporware includes Arkanoid, Demon Attack 2600, Ballblazer, Gauntlet, B.C.'s Quest for Tires, Satan's Hollow, and some others for which I have assets but little to no code, yet. Worse, I keep coming across other games I want to do and start assets for those. My problem is I just do not have a comfortable work area, yet, to focus on programming and I cannot adapt to doing it all on my laptop. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Dungeons of Asgard, Formula 99 (driving game), and Super Mario Bros are the games I have spent most time on without finishing. And then there are a few projects like pinball and Tower Trouble (Nebulus like) that have never developed beyond the proof of concept. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Dungeons of Asgard, Formula 99 (driving game), and Super Mario Bros are the games I have spent most time on without finishing. And then there are a few projects like pinball and Tower Trouble (Nebulus like) that have never developed beyond the proof of concept. I hope you finish Dungeons of Asgard! Seeing it was one of the things that prompted me to start using the AMS. I feel like we're writing two different kinds of CRPG's as well; yours more closely resembles one of the classic console games like Dragon Warrior. (Which I spent many hours playing!) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 9 years ago I started this and never finished it. I had too many un-answered questions about how Willy jumps. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rossman Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 I always find that I never commented the code properly with some projects so they end up in the bin because I forget how I was doing stuff at the time. Ultimate Planet looks interesting. Hi, Retrospect. One habit that has been effective for me is that I log the night's work experience - what I've tried, done, learned, discovered - before calling it a night. It's not an abstract of lessons learned, it's just a raw dump of tried-failed-tried-worked-researched-learned-tried-succeeded. (Yes, I try to end every night's work on a success.) Compile time being what it is, I can update the log while I'm working. Helps me to record context, priority, conclusions, available information, questions, doubts, ambitions, etc. I have found this log helps when resuming a project. It puts me back into my frame of mind at the time I did something. Recreating my frame of mind in a cumulative fashion helps me to recapture a substantial portion of the body of understanding I had acquired at the time I suspended work. That, for me, is the most valuable thing to the log. I picked up Pascal development a few weeks ago after a half-year hiatus. A few weeks into it, I realize there was a standard (such as it is) I was driving to last year that can only be achieved through more than banal familiarity with language syntax. A few weeks ago, I logged "Now I know why Boston's second album was so bad compared to their first album." My formulaic approach to development was a function of me treating this exercise as an obligation rather than a learning exercise. "Beginner's mind" is so much more rewarding, especially in a hobby. There is joy in capturing it at the time, and value in capturing it to future you. And I most certainly do not want to be on a path to creating the Pascal equivalent of Boston's third ablum. Should that happen, it will be time to sell the p-code card. I use Evernote as my logging tool, but obviously there are many choices. Best regards, R. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1980gamer Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 Tron looks awesome! I have a space battle started, but I am not very good at drawing the ships or doing the movements of them I would love to do a version of Auto Racing. With Faster Cars! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 9 years ago I started this and never finished it. I had too many un-answered questions about how Willy jumps. All your questions answered : http://skoolkit.ca/disassemblies/manic_miner/asm/35515.html 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 I worked on porting versions of Intellivision's Beauty and the Beast & Astrosmash. My work files were lost either through a failed replication or through my own stupidity - or maybe both. I had saved a few snapshots for posting to AA back in the day; this one shows some nearly completed graphics. Hearing others comment about Intellivision (and seeing the port of Night Stalker) leads me to wonder if there isn't a competition opportunity along the lines of porting some of those simpler games to work on the TI. The graphics aren't much to write home about but the gameplay is so often simple and addictive. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LASooner Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 (edited) Well I did start working on a Intellivision bomb squad port. Now that Senior Falcon added speech to his compiler maybe I'll get back to that. I tend to start futzing around with graphics in Magellan, and see if it peaks my interest. As well as Bomb Squad, I have Gamestar Baseball, HypaBall, Bruce Lee, a generic football game. I'm still recovering from shipping BO4, so I'm not keen to dive right back in to anything. This is where I left some of them BOMBTECH8.bin JB8.bin Bruce8.bin Edited January 4, 2019 by LASooner 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 The king of lost/abandoned projects.... sad thing is, this one has been derailed for 3 years because I can't fix a bug. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 Well I did start working on a Intellivision bomb squad port [...] I have Gamestar Baseball, HypaBall, Bruce Lee, a generic football game. I'm still recovering from shipping BO4, so I'm not keen to dive right back in to anything.[...] wow Bruce lee i love too 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 The king of lost/abandoned projects.... sad thing is, this one has been derailed for 3 years because I can't fix a bug. If you don't mind my asking, what was the bug that blocked you? I'd be happy to help... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 So many buried treasures here... We need a rescue operation! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 2 of the projects I invested a lot of time in and then.... Mind you they are not abandonded, just delayed 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 Well I did start working on a Intellivision bomb squad port. Now that Senior Falcon added speech to his compiler maybe I'll get back to that. I tend to start futzing around with graphics in Magellan, and see if it peaks my interest. As well as Bomb Squad, I have Gamestar Baseball, HypaBall, Bruce Lee, a generic football game. I'm still recovering from shipping BO4, so I'm not keen to dive right back in to anything. I have sound assets for Bruce Lee if you are interested. It looks great! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 (edited) If you don't mind my asking, what was the bug that blocked you? I'd be happy to help... A strange bug where when loading a saved game, the data gets jacked up. Rather than starting you at the cave (as it should) it starts you in the top left screen and then the screen scrolls endlessly downward until memory is corrupted. I have extremely well commented code, so diagnosing any issues on the XB side of things is a breeze. Unfortunately, this bug is likely in the assembly source code Matthew helped me with. That isn't to say that the code is buggy, but what I am trying to do with it now is outside of the scope of what the routine was initially designed to do. Here is a video I took of the issues few years ago. https://youtu.be/8VaN-jME8iQ"]https://youtu.be/8VaN-jME8iQ Edited January 4, 2019 by Opry99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 I don't know if this is relevant here, but the memory is not cleared in the lower 8K where your assembly routines would normally reside when you break and restart an XB program. I'm not sure what Matthew's routine is exactly doing, but it might be something to look at. Perhaps you can post the code for that routine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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